Killing The Joke
by Maiku's Requiem
Summary: A war rages within Jack Napier. A war between himself and his demon he calls,The Joker. A war not only for Jack's soul,but the soul of Gotham. Who will be the victor? Jack or The Joker? The Joker or Batman? Gotham City will find that out...the hard way


Since seeing the depiction of him in Dark Knight, I've come to see the Joker as more then just a murdering, psychopathic super villain (although that is what he is- at a _basic_ level.) This is my attempt at expressing my views on that subject. Although Dark Knight is my main source, I've also drawn from the comics, the graphic novels _The Killing Joke _and_ Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth_, _Batman: the Animated Series _and my own ideas to make this story. I see the Joker in many different lights. In this story, the Joker is many things: a man who's in some ways still a child, a man so disillusioned by his own psychosis that he can't remember who or what he is or how and when he got there, a man who has been brutally raped by society and those closest to him and as a result has been driven into insanity, a son, a husband, a revolutionary, an anarchist, a serial killer, an urban legend, an Antichrist with a twisted messiah complex and simply- a human being.

So, read, enjoy, and feel free to comment

Thanks, Maiku.

* * *

A stinging emanated from Jack's wrist as the knife cut it. Crimson liquid flowed down from the wound, despite it being a simple nick. Jack stared at the blood with stoic awe-not shock or fear at the slight of his own life fluid leaving him. In fact, he didn't so much as flinch when his flesh was sliced. Had he grown used to the pain? Perhaps. But he hadn't felt such pain in eight years, and even then, the pain he had once known was of a higher caliber then that of a simple nick. Perhaps it brought him comfort knowing once again that he was alive. He had only truly felt that way once, for a brief time in his life and that era had been violently ended without his choosing by a specter of death. He died and was sent to a horrible purgatory where nothing seemed real, everything a lucid dream- an abstract. Perhaps the reason, simple enough, was that he liked the pain and the sight of blood made him feel at ease.

Jack sucked methodically on the wound, pulling the scarlet from the slight cavity. The sanguine taste filled his mouth and a wave of euphoria rushed over him. He released his lip's grip on the wrist and with the hand attached to it, bent down to the dirty wooden floor and picked up a broken hospital bracelet, his broken hospital bracelet. Which he had successfully removed-the exception was the small cut on his wrist -with the small pocket knife that his other hand was still holding. He leered at the bracelet, more exactly, the name of the hospital printed on the side: _Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane._

How he loathed that place. He loathed what it stood for, he loathed the society and government that banished him to its walls and he loathed what it had done to him. But was all the blame to placed on Arkham? After all, Arkham was just one of the many catalysts that brought Jack to where he was now, The final bolt in the machine that made him what he had now become. Jack focused his gaze on the other name on the bracelet, the one that held the most importance to him: _Jack Napier-_ the name had been his for the last 31 years. What did that mean now? That name had a person attached to it: a personality, a life, a history, memories, hopes and dreams- things now lost and corroded. Jack Napier the name was alive and well, but Jack Napier the person was dead.

Jack stabbed the knife into the yellowed decaying mattress he was sitting on. Releasing a venerable musty stench into the air and disrupting the multitudes of bed bugs that crawled along it. He stood up with great speed and walked briskly across the grime and grit covered floor, the floorboards creaked loudly under his weight, giving away the age of building he was in. He stopped when he reached the red-bricked wall, staring at the newspaper clippings from the Gotham Tribune that hung on to it by excess amounts of masking tape. He scanned the wall meticulously, searching the one that he most craved for. When had found it, he tore it violently off the wall and read it to himself.

**_Wednesday/December 14, 1983-_**

**_Narrows Resident James Napier Charged With The Vicious Murder of His Wife And Maiming of His 6-Year-Old Son:_**

_When Gotham police arrived at the Brookestone Apartments in Narrows Island on a Domestic Disturbance late last night, what they saw stunned them. In the kitchen of apartment 432, Police discovered the body of 32-year- old Patricia Napier. She had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and her neck was slit. In the living room, Police discovered her son, 6-year-old Jack Napier, unconscious and bleeding from a large gash in his face. The weapon- a common kitchen knife- was found in the doorway. Perpetrator 36- year-old James Napier was found in the bathroom shower by police who were drawn in by the sound of his hysterical laughing. Although he readily admitted to the acts, he will be given a full psychological evaluation at Arkham Asylum pending his trail to determine if he is competent enough to…_

Screaming- Blood-Pain**.** Jack collapsed to the floor folded up in a fetal position. His body shook with blend of rage and terror. He closed his eyes, trying to stop the demon from reaching him like a child covers themselves with a blanket to ward off the monster in their closest.

He opened his eyes to a small green room; a soft bed of purple flannel blankets covered him. In his arms he clutched tightly a plush harlequin jester doll draped in black and red. He was a child again. He watched with drowsy eyes as snowflakes fell outside of his frost-tented window in vibrant shades of green, red, yellow and blue, reflecting the glow from the multitudes of Christmas lights that bordered it. He could hear the sound of his mothers Rat Pack Christmas album playing in the living room and the wheezing emanating from his mouth as he breathed. As the blend of rhythms continued, he could feel himself drifting slowly to off sleep…

He was woken violently by the roaring sound of his father's yelling, "Where the hell did it go Patricia?!" The sound of a hand violently hitting flesh, crashing plates and his mothers soft crying buzzed though Jack's small ears. His first instinct was to hide, cover himself so when the displaced anger came looking for him, he couldn't be found. With doll in hand, he got up and silently ran to the closet. But curiosity got the better of him; he sensed more rage, more anger in his fathers voice and actions then normal. He left his room and walked slowly down the yellow flower wallpaper and matted brown shag carpet hallway. He as he reached the end of hallway, he surveyed the living room: No mother, no father, just an analog television and stand where the record player was singing Frank Sinatra's I'll be home for Christmas, making the malnourished Christmas tree look all the more pathetic. He heard the sound of a chair being slid across a floor and slamming into a wall. Instinctly, he whisked himself into the living room and hid under the end table next to the couch, with intense fear, he watched the happenings going on in the kitchen: His father, tall, strong built, wearing nothing but his blue work pants with a empty beer bottle in hand, was hovering over his petite mother who was sitting forcibly in a kitchen table chair, trapped by her husband in front, the kitchen counter and sink behind her. "Don't fucking dick with me, there was 70 dollars in the top drawer and now it's gone, where did it go?" He grabbed her face in his hands, shoving it close to his own. She winced at the potent stench of alcohol on his breath as she spoke through her tears,

"I had to use it to pay for Jakey's doctor bill, your son has been sick for the last two weeks with Bronchitis." He bit his lip; starring at her with a hatful, paranoid gaze,

"He's not my son," He threw the bottle at the refrigerator, shattering it into a hundred brown pieces as it hit the floor. " You just told me that so I would marry your sorry ass."

"But James, he looks just like you." The fear in her voice rose as she came to realize that the words spewing from his mouth were not hidden truths let out by the impairment of the mind through drunkenness, but delusions caused by the erosion of the mind.

" Shut up." He placed his finger over her mouth. A sinister smirk enveloped his face as he scanned her body lustfully, " I want a kid who I know is mine," He lifted her from the chair, throwing her viciously on to kitchen table. He leaned on her, kissing and caressing her body as she cried and sobbed through the sadistic foreplay.

Hearing the sound of his belt coming undone, she caught the glint coming off the blade of the small kitchen knife that rested next to her on the table, she grasped the handle in her shaking hand and slashed the blade across his shoulder. In sudden pain, he fell back from her. She jumped off the table and started to run but he lunged at her, grabbing her by her the hair, causing her to lose the knife as she plummeted to the floor. He stood over her, glaring at her with his shallow malice-filled blue eyes, letting out a cackle of absolute rage. "You wanna play knifies do ya!?" He picked the knife up from the floor and with a twisted, depraved smile on his face, positioned it over her, " We can play knifies , you stupid bitch!" Psychotic laughter was instantly over come by guttural screams that echoed though the kitchen, quickly changing to moans and then silence, leaving the demented howls to reverberate the through the apartment, fallowed by a steadily advancing pool of blood.

Jack starred into the kitchen with stoic horror, clutching his doll ever the tighter in his shaking arms. Unable to scream, unable to move, he sat in pools of tears, waiting for the inevitable. Then the words, three unassuming words that in any other situation would mean nothing, but brought with them more terror now then any words after them ever would. "Why so serious, Jack?" His father's approaching footsteps sent a shockwave of trepidation through his heart. " Why so serious?" The words became more maniacal each time they were repeated. Jack's panic grew with each passing step, each repeating of the words. A large hand wrapped around Jack's small ankle pulling him viciously out from under the table. The demon hovered over him, dripping blood and oozing insanity. The knife revealed itself, stained in the blood of his mother, it was placed his Jack's mouth, the cold steel burning against the soft tissue. "Let's put a smile on that face." Giggling-laughter-stinging-blood-agony-laughter – silence… blackness.

Jack opened his eyes to the bricked room; a cold blanket of grime and bugs covered him. He placed his shaking hand over the right side of his face and felt the scar: long, thick, and maliciously cut into the crude shape of simile. It had healed up long ago, loosing the maroon tint and gaining a flesh toned one. In his other hand he grasped the crumpled newspaper article. It too had aged, becoming warped and yellowed by the passing of time, just like him.

Jack lay on the floor, unable and unwilling to move. At his feet noticed the coat rack, covered by a dark purple hooded sweatshirt that had a bulge protruding from the pocket. He kicked the rack down and pulled the sweatshirt off of it. Digging into the pocket, he pulled out the red and black harlequin jester doll, kept well over the years, it had barley aged. The only thing wrong with it was the discolored, blotchy brown stain going down its left side. He clutched the doll tightly in his arms, pressing it firmly against his chest as he let out a soft, tired laugh as he covered himself in the coat and slowly drifted off to sleep...


End file.
